Currently, the OpenOffice.org Wiki is quite chaotic. Each L10N group,
whether translating existing pages, or authoring new, is using different
styles, naming conventions, linking and so on. The result is a real
confused mess of random pages, and no one really knows from one page to
the next if there is a localized version, or even how many localized
pages there are on a topic.
Some groups are using an ISO language code to identify their pages such
as the German community with many of their pages in the DE suppage
structure (e.g. DE/Some_Wiki_page_in_German). Other groups such as the
French community have been using a completely different page structure
(e.g. fr.openoffice.org/Some_Wiki_page_in_French). Other groups do not
use anything at all to identify the language other than a Wiki page name
in the localized language. None are wrong... but all are different.
So, what can we do? How can we introduce a little sanity and
consistency to the Wiki without limiting the free form nature of a Wiki
that encourages people to contribute?
We could start using the ISO_code/subpage structure like the German
language example above. This has several benefits:
- All Wiki pages in a specific language are grouped under an easily
identifiable language code.
- There is a consistent identifier for each language (instead of the
random ways we use now)
- It makes it much easier to identify common translated pages if we
all use the same basic structure. For example,
DE/Documentation/Admin_Guide and VI/Documentation/Admin_Guide are the
translated versions of Documentation/Admin_Guide. Compare that to
Leitfaden_für_Administratoren, which is what? (this is just an example
and not really a real page on the OooWiki)
- You get a "home page" for each L10N community which is the ISO code
for your language. For example:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/DE
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Zh
- All your pages get a nice breadcrumb at the top of each wiki page
which shows where in that language Wiki structure you are currently at.
For example:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Zh/Documentation/DevGuide/FirstSteps/First_Steps
- This structure makes it a lot easier to set up the WikiBot to do
maintenance on specific page subsets, and to automatically generate
Collections of Wiki pages for publishing ODT and ODF documents.
What about the disadvantages?
Well, the URL for a Wiki page would be in English instead of in the
localized language. There is a way to handle that... you can use the
{{DISPLAYTITLE:Your_localized_title}} syntax to give the translated page
the right page title (this syntax is used extensively already in the
English Documentation subpages... also see the Chinese document example
above)
There is already a long history of pages in the various random ways
we've built them in the Wiki. Well, that can be easily solved with the
WikiBot. If we come to an agreement that requires a shuffle (or move)
in pages, the WikiBot can do this semi-automatically. It can move the
pages and leave redirects in place from all the old pages (so no broken
link problems). This means no effort from the various communities.
What about linking from one language to the next in a specific page?
There is already a solution in place on the Wiki for that called
InterWiki Links. Take a look at the OOoWiki Main Page or the Extensions
pages for examples of how this works.
Are there other disadvantages?
This is just an idea... what does everyone else think? Is this moving
in the right direction? Is there a better way to start organizing this?
Please give your thoughts and comments.. good and bad :-) Hopefully
we can find a good solution that works for everyone.
C.
--
Clayton Cornell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany
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